Micron, a U.S. memory semiconductor corporation, has appointed the former chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to its board. This move by Micron, which is competing in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market against Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, is interpreted as a strategy to accelerate the development of the sixth generation of HBM (HBM4) through collaboration with a foundry company.
According to industry sources on the 6th, Micron announced on its website on the 5th (local time) that it will appoint Mark Liu, the former chairman of TSMC, to its board.
Liu, the former chairman, is recognized for leading TSMC for over 30 years, having served as president and co-CEO from 2013 to 2018, after which he held the chairman position until last year.
Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of Micron, said, "Liu's experience will be a great asset in leveraging growth opportunities driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and expanding the business from data centers to the edge."
Micron's strengthened collaboration with TSMC is expected to enhance the capabilities of the upcoming custom product, HBM4.
TSMC connects the HBM received from memory companies to NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) to create AI accelerators. Starting with HBM4, a foundry process will be applied to the logic die, which serves as the brain of HBM. For SK hynix and Micron, which do not possess their own foundry capabilities, collaboration with TSMC is effectively essential. SK hynix is already establishing a "one team" system with TSMC, aiming for HBM4 product development and mass production in the second half of this year.
Meanwhile, Micron is supplying HBM3E 8-layer products to NVIDIA, making it the second after SK hynix, and has set a target for mass production of HBM4 products within two years.